JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Act on forex shortages, business leaders tell Dhanpaul

by

23 hours ago
20250318
Newly appointed Minister of Finance, Vishnu Dhanpaul, left, shares a light moment with Minister in the Ministry of Finance Brian Manning and Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs, Amery Browne, at yesterday’s swearing-in ceremony of the new Cabinet at President’s House in St Ann’s yesterday.

Newly appointed Minister of Finance, Vishnu Dhanpaul, left, shares a light moment with Minister in the Ministry of Finance Brian Manning and Minister of Foreign and Caricom Affairs, Amery Browne, at yesterday’s swearing-in ceremony of the new Cabinet at President’s House in St Ann’s yesterday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

T&T's busi­ness lead­ers are large­ly op­ti­mistic and ea­ger to work with new Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Vish­nu Dhan­paul, and are call­ing on him to ad­dress the thorny is­sue of for­eign ex­change avail­abil­i­ty.

Dhan­paul was sworn in as the min­is­ter on Mon­day af­ter­noon, re­plac­ing Colm Im­bert who, af­ter al­most ten years as Fi­nance Min­is­ter, was re­as­signed to the Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties.

The T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce said in a re­lease it "is en­cour­aged by the ap­point­ment of Mr. Vish­nu Dhan­paul as Min­is­ter of Fi­nance. His ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in eco­nom­ic pol­i­cy and pub­lic sec­tor trans­for­ma­tion will be crit­i­cal to ad­dress­ing fis­cal chal­lenges, restor­ing busi­ness con­fi­dence, and ac­cel­er­at­ing eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery. We look for­ward to work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to ad­vance poli­cies that sup­port en­tre­pre­neur­ship, strength­en the ease of do­ing busi­ness, and bol­ster Trinidad and To­ba­go’s glob­al com­pet­i­tive­ness."

Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce pres­i­dent, Bal­dath Ma­haraj, sim­i­lar­ly felt that Dhan­paul's ex­pe­ri­ence in the Min­istry would be an as­set. Dhan­paul had pre­vi­ous­ly been a per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry.

He said, "His wealth of ex­pe­ri­ence in fi­nan­cial man­age­ment and eco­nom­ic poli­cies come at a cru­cial time when busi­ness­es are fac­ing mount­ing fi­nan­cial pres­sures. The Cham­ber is ea­ger to work with Min­is­ter Dhan­paul to press the re­set but­ton on key fi­nan­cial is­sues par­tic­u­lar­ly the time­ly re­ceipt of VAT and oth­er tax re­funds as well as the per­sis­tent for­eign ex­change short­ages that con­tin­ue to hin­der busi­ness op­er­a­tions and eco­nom­ic growth. Ad­dress­ing these mat­ters with ur­gency is es­sen­tial to restor­ing sta­bil­i­ty and in­vestor con­fi­dence."

How­ev­er, Ma­haraj felt Dhan­paul had work to do with re­gard to fu­ture fi­nan­cial plan­ning, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the un­cer­tain­ty fac­ing en­er­gy sec­tor projects in the wake of Unit­ed State Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump's re-elec­tion.

He said, "T&T econ­o­my re­mains heav­i­ly re­liant on the en­er­gy sec­tor and with­out a clear strat­e­gy to hedge against po­ten­tial short­falls, Busi­ness­es and the wider econ­o­my could face sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges. The cham­ber urges the Min­is­ter to lead ef­forts in di­ver­si­fy­ing rev­enue streams and strength­en­ing fi­nan­cial re­silience in the face of this un­cer­tain­ty."

Ma­haraj al­so urged Dhan­paul to aid SMEs in terms of ac­cess to for­eign ex­change, a point of view that the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce (GS­FCC) pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh agreed on.

"What we would ex­pect the new Min­is­ter would ad­dress, of course, the num­ber one burn­ing con­cern for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is forex. And we re­al­ly ex­pect that he would ad­dress that is­sue as soon as he pos­si­bly can. We don't ex­pect he will take long to get in­to his new role as the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance hav­ing been in the Min­istry for so many years," said Singh, who not­ed that Min­is­ter Im­bert had been work­ing with the Ex­im­Bank to ad­dress this is­sue.

"The SME sec­tor is al­ways at a dis­ad­van­tage and we ex­pect that the new Min­is­ter of Fi­nance will as­sist and have this process more open and ex­pand­ed to ben­e­fit the SME sec­tor as we face the chal­leng­ing eco­nom­ic times right now," he said.

Guardian Group CEO Ian Chi­napoo as well as Massy Hold­ings CEO Robert Ri­ley both said at IDB In­vest sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny with Massy Group to 'Ad­vance Sus­tain­able De­vel­op­ment in the Caribbean and Be­yond' at the Hy­att Re­gency that they were look­ing for­ward to work­ing with Dhan­paul, as they both said his ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence in fi­nance is an as­set.


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored